http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-porter-ranch-20160105-story.html
Los Angeles Times, Jan 5, 2016 (emphasis added): Utility is installing screens to contain oily mist at leaking well near Porter Ranch… The structures under construction on the west side of the well head are designed to capture airborne droplets of a brine solution that “may have contained trace amounts of oil naturally occurring within the leaking well’s reservoir,” said Trisha Muse, a spokeswoman for SoCal Gas… Now, a mixture of brine water and oil is rising up into the gas company’s natural gas storage zone, then traveling up the well and into the air. As a result, local residents are finding droplets of dark brown residue on their homes, vehicles, fish ponds and gardens… [The company] acknowledged that some residents had asked about “dark brown spots on their property.” “We sampled it and, according to our retained toxicologist and medical expert,” the company said, “the residue contained heavier hydrocarbons (similar to motor oil) but does not pose a health risk.”… On Monday, plaintiffs’ attorneys sent a letter to state regulatory officials [and] demanded that state regulators “explain what is happening with the petroleum now surfacing.”… “There is a complete lack of information in the well files,” their letter says, “to show where the gas and petroleum migrates underground and the risk for creating sink holes and geysers.”

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35257861
BBC, Jan 8, 2016: Residents… point out cars, outdoor furniture and houses which have been marked with brown, oily spots… Tim O’Connor, a lawyer with the Environmental Defense Fund, has called it “an environmental and public health catastrophe,” said . “In terms of timelines this is going to surpass the gulf oil problem by a mile.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/07/us/california-governor-declares-emergency-over-los-angeles-gas-leak.html?_r=0
New York Times, Jan 6, 2016: Gov. Jerry Brown, faced with mounting public anger and no end in sight to the leak, declared a state of emergency… Mitchell Englander, the Los Angeles city councilman who represents Porter Ranch [said] “This is one of the most disruptive, catastrophic environmental events that I’ve seen. It’s a truly chaotic crisis.”… Many who have stayed have taken to wearing surgical masks when they garden to keep out the rotten-egg smell and the oily mist that sometimes leaves brown residue on their cars… Dennis Arriola, the president of Southern California Gas Company [said] that experts had “never seen anything like this.”

Newsweek, Jan 7, 2016: SoCalGas and public officials have turned [Porter Ranch’s Matt Pakucko] and his fellow residents into “guinea pigs.”… [Sally Benson, who runs an energy storage lab at Stanford University] shares a worry of many in Porter Ranch as they deal with the mundanities of the leak: that the gas plume will somehow become ignited, leading to [an] explosion… “They’re really fortunate that this one hasn’t caught fire,” Benson says… [The FAA] has imposed a no-fly zone above Porter Ranch “out of concerns that fumes from the gas leak could be ignited from the air.” Schwecke, the SoCalGas vice president, says workers near the relief well are taking every precaution, not using their cellphones and working with brass hammers, which don’t spark… [David Balen, a local businessman on the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council] showed me photographs of a white dust that had collected on concrete surfaces around his property; an expert was coming to test the substance, which Balen thought was something toxic.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-35244634
BBC, Jan 7, 2016: The governor of California has declared a state of emergency in a suburb of Los Angeles over the leaking of methane gas… the company is installing large mesh screens around the leak site to try and hinder the oily mist from spraying down on the community.

Dr. Timothy Mousseau, Department of Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina,
published Oct 3, 2015:

18:30 in — “We don’t see these kind of patches of white feathers anywhere else around the world… Whats really interesting is that 2 years ago we started finding birds in Fukushima with patches of white feathers as well… The frequencies are increasing, its related to the radiation exposure… White spots, they first started noticing these white spots on these cows shortly after the disaster.”

30:30 in — “Fukushima… After 4 years of repeated sampling this is what we find: huge impacts, dramatically fewer birds in the areas of high radiation, many dramatically fewer species of birds as well.”

32:00 in — “Since it was July, I think I’ll… have to go with ‘Silent Summer’ effect… It’s really a dead zone. There are no butterflies, no birds. Very few, and it’s very, very clearly the result of the radiation contaminants.”

34:30 in — (Showing images of the radioactive contamination crossing the Pacific Ocean) “Why does it matter to you?… The reason is… it’s coming — it is coming.”

Asahi Shimbun, May 23, 2015 (emphasis added): Risk of hydrogen explosion from leaking containers at Fukushima plant… at least 10 percent have leaks, which could trigger a hydrogen explosion. [TEPCO] reported its findings at a meeting with a study group from the Nuclear Regulation Authority on May 22… there were about 1,300 such containers at the plant… The first leak was discovered in a lid on April 2… Of the 278 it had examined by May 20, it found 26 had some sort of leak or were bleeding from their lids… likely caused by hydrogen and other types of gases that resulted from the water’s exposure to high levels of radiation. Such gases appear to have accumulated in sediment at the bottom of the containers, expanding the volume of the liquid. An NRA official said the accumulating hydrogen poses a potential danger…http://ajw.asahi.com/article/0311disaster/fukushima/AJ201505230059

Mainichi, May 23, 2015: Container for Fukushima waste found without gas venting holes… [NRA officials] had asked TEPCO to create the holes. In early April, containers were found to be leaking radioactive waste liquids through the venting holes. Later in the month… it discovered the container without the venting holes. Out of the approximately 1,400 containers, 334… have not yet been checked for venting holes. TEPCO has speculated that the work to create the holes was skipped over at a factory in the United States.http://mainichi.jp/english/english/newsselect/news/20150523p2a00m0na015000c.html

NHK, May 22, 2015: Radioactive wastewater leak linked to hydrogen – The operator of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant says recent leaks of highly radioactive wastewater from their containers were likely due to accumulated hydrogen gas in the tanks… TEPCO has found since April that the wastewater, produced during the process of treating radioactive water, had seeped out through the lids of a number of containers. The utility says that 26 of the 278 inspected containers had leaked, and in 15 of them, bubbles formed when workers stirred the liquid inside, and water levels went down. The utility believes the bubbles mainly consist of hydrogen, generated by strong radiation inside the containers. TEPCO officials suspect the gas increased the volume of the wastewater, forcing some to overflow.http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20150522_27.html